Harry Houdini

The great Harry Houdini best exemplified the 1920s’ hype, showmanship, and interest in the mysterious. By the 1920s the remarkable illusionist and escape artist had already perfected and performed his most famous tricks. These included the upside-down water torture cell escape and the vanishing elephant trick in the New York Hippodrome in 1918. Houdini also starred in several motion pictures from 1919 to 1922. Some were even produced by his own company that featured his escapes and other stunts.
But despite his love of performing and delighting an audience, he seemingly did not like others trying to steal the limelight. From 1923 to 1925, he went on a campaign to expose all of the phony spiritualists benefiting from his tricks in the 1920s. He did everything in his power to reveal their deceit. He battled in the press with the famous Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, an outspoken spiritualism advocate, lectured nationwide on the subject, showing his audiences first-hand just how phony the medium tricks were done, and even testified before Congress on the issue.
Just as they had made him known world wide, however, Harry Houdini’s death defying tricks also broke him. On August 5, 1926, Houdini performed his most dangerous stunt, a 90-minute underwater submersion in an airtight sealed coffin. On October 31, 1926, he died of peritonitis resulting from appendicitis.

-Haig Altunian

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